Jonathan Mayes
Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan brings 20 years’ experience with UK and North American arts organisations including leadership and artistic roles with Clore Leadership, the Philharmonia, Arts Council England, the Pittsburgh and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Southbank Centre and the Barbican. During his six years at Arts Council England, Jonathan developed relationships with a number of orchestras, opera companies and Music Education Hubs. As Head of Strategic Partnerships & Impact at Clore Leadership, he has led on collaborations across the cultural sector, expanding the organisation’s reach across the UK and internationally. Jonathan spends time singing with various amateur choirs in London and is also Vice Chair of the National Children’s Orchestra. As CEO, Jonathan will be responsible for implementing the Trust’s inaugural five-year Strategic Plan.
Jonathan’s choral pick:
Development
Leila Alexander
Development Director
Having joined the Trust in Autumn 2025, Leila aims to build support further for the charity to ensure cathedral music continues to inspire future generations.
Alongside her career offering a wealth of experience in the arts and charity sectors, including work with youth choirs, and initiatives supporting teenagers’ access to music, Leila is a classically trained soprano. A scholar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and part of the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Programme, Leila has performed at many incredible international venues including Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, St George’s Hanover Square, Tbilisi Opera House, the Mozarteum, and the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, deepening her love of sacred and choral repertoire and the belief in music’s transformative power.
Leila’s choral pick:
Hannah Capstick
Volunteer & Events Coordinator
Hannah came to choral music while at university, singing in University College Chapel Choir while reading music. From there she developed a love of singing and sacred music, also joining a university opera society, alongside being a flautist, composer, and conductor.
Having previously worked in theatre, and as a Verger in a cathedral, Hannah is no stranger to events management, and is looking forward to building her skills in the development team, and championing the incredible work of our talented volunteers, Future Leaders, and local and regional ambassadors.
Hannah’s choral pick:
Katy Ashman
Development Officer (part-time)
A musician from a young age, Katy’s favourite musical memory is singing on the eve of her tenth birthday under the baton of Sir David Willcocks in her hometown, at Sherborne Abbey. Her administrative training derives from working in various industries: horticulture, engineering, software, parish administration and more recently for a national conservation charity. Her musical background is mostly in community music, in particular, using the power of music to improve quality of life for older adults in care home settings, including those living with dementia. She has recently moved to North Wales where she spends free moments gardening and improving her Italian and Welsh.
Katy’s choral pick:
Laura Cottrell
Digital and Communications
A lifelong arts advocate, Laura brings experience shaped from a background across heritage sites, cultural institutions and regional theatres. Bringing historic spaces and artistic programmes to life, helping organisations build deeper, more connected communities through thoughtful, creative communication.
Laura is focused on growing awareness of the Trust’s mission, strengthening supporter engagement, and showcasing the impact of cathedral music through compelling digital narratives. Outside work, she can often be found singing with her local amateur dramatic group exploring historic buildings and attending local music performances with her children.
Laura’ choral pick:
Cathy Dew
Programmes Director
Cathy leads the Trust’s Programmes Team, which includes managing our Cathedral Music Support Programme and the Church Choir Award as well as working alongside our partners to enable people of all ages and backgrounds to discover the joys of cathedral music.
Prior to her work at the Trust, she read music at university, completing a DPhil in early music at the University of York, and later put this to good use running the education programme at the National Centre for Early Music. She spent five years in Worcestershire, where she combined running a singing programme for young people with leading music workshops the length and breadth of the UK. After a period in Germany, she returned to the UK and settled in Norfolk. She very much enjoys listening to the choir at Norwich Cathedral, where her son is a chorister.
Cathy’s choral pick:
Anna Ellis
Programmes Manager
Anna caught the choral singing bug when she joined her local cathedral’s youth choir, going on to study music at Cardiff University. Before joining the Trust, she worked to support churches with grants and advice as part of the Church Engagement Team at the National Churches Trust. She has also spent time as an Editorial Assistant at Bloomsbury Academic, and as Music and Liturgy Administrator at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. When not at work Anna can usually be found knitting and singing with a church choir, although rarely at the same time.
Anna’s choral pick:
Finance
Dan Bishop
Director of Finance & Resources (part-time)
Dan has always been a lover of choral and liturgical music, from early experience as a church chorister via studying Music and Sound Recording at university, and now singing with local church and cathedral choirs in Guildford.
He’s delighted to combine this with experience in charity finance, having led finance and operations at two other charities and supported multiple others through consultation and training. Alongside his part-time work with the Trust, Dan is studying for a formal accountancy qualification and provides freelance bookkeeping services to churches and charities. When away from spreadsheets and choral scores, Dan enjoys improving his organ and piano playing, and being out in the Surrey hills!
Dan’s choral pick:
Amanda Welsh
Finance Officer (part-time)
Apart from a brief time learning the tenor horn at school, and a year or two in the school choir, Amanda had a rather limited musical background until she discovered the pure pleasure of communal singing about 13 years ago, when she joined a local community choir. She now regularly sings with another community choir and is a director of Community Vox, an initiative which aims to bring community arts to the people of Surrey and the South East.
Before joining the Trust, Amanda has had a varied career path starting in IT, providing training and support in Surrey, before veering off wildly into different sectors including childminding, bookkeeping and a technician in a school laboratory before landing her dream job as the administrator at the internationally award-winning Farnham Youth Choir. Amanda lives in Farnham, Surrey, has two grown up daughters and two pesky cats and when not working or singing, likes to cycle, walk and climb.
Amanda’s choral pick:
Our Playlist
Jonathan: Hear my prayer, O Lord – Purcell
This is an almost impossible task – I want to choose about 30 different pieces covering about 500 years of choral music… But, if I have to choose one, it has to be Purcell’s ‘Hear My Prayer, O Lord’. It’s about as close to perfection as you can get in two-and-a-half minutes of music: visceral cries of help straight from the human heart turned into one sweeping choral outpouring.
Cathy: I sat down under his shadow – Bairstow
I’m particularly drawn to the ravishing harmonies and unusual distribution of voice parts in this sublime miniature. Bairstow was associated with the city of York for many years, where I also spent a very happy time as a student. He had a reputation for having rather an abrupt manner of communication – perhaps he reserved all his subtlety for his music!
Anna: Like as the Hart – Howells
This is the first anthem I remember learning, and I’ve always been captivated by the contrasts between bare, flowing melodies and lush full chorus moments, which to me express the sentiments of the words so beautifully. I’d never sung anything like it before and still get excited whenever I come across it.
Leila: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring – Bach
Without a doubt, Johann Sebastian Bach’s magnificent chorale used for Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Bach’s arrangement of choral interludes and undulating melody is masterful and instantly recognisable. This 1991 recording by The Choir of Clare College conducted by Timothy Brown is exquisite.
Hannah: Peace I Leave with You – Amy Beach
The first piece of choral music I ever sang! Beautiful, simple, effective, it never fails to bring back fond memories of singing in my university chapel choir, a sense of calm, and a short space of respite and reflection.
Katy: Chichester Psalms – Bernstein
For the memories of studying and performing it during first year undergraduate studies (as an instrumentalist, not a singer) and rushing out to buy it in the local record shop in Bath (before the days of internet streaming). It was music and text unlike anything I’d encountered previously, with its striking dissonances and magically calm passages; it felt like a real musical discovery at the time, as well as a challenge learning the psalms in Hebrew!
Laura: Missa Brevis II : Gloria – John Rutter
I first heard this at Ampleforth Abbey sung by my daughter’s school choir, it was magnificently moving and a very proud moment. When the first line magically bursts in, the soaring sounds and powerful acoustics of the space – a very special moment and song that I will treasure.
Dan: And I saw a new heaven – Bainton
This piece has always held a special place in my heart since I was a treble many years ago. Bainton’s variation in luscious (heavenly!) harmonies, and texture throughout the work is incredibly special, and quite moving!
Amanda Welsh: Adoramus te Christe – Lassus
I have always loved Lassus’s Adoramus te, and when I was away on a family holiday in Portugal a few years ago, my daughter sang the alto part in a tiny chapel in Sintra to test out the acoustic – that memory will stick for a long time, hence this choice.